Bursts of confetti and/or streamers shot out of so-called "cannons" connected to compressed gas sources have long been used at shows, parties, circus acts and other events so as to produce displays of sound, color and motion. However, such cannons have been made of heavy gauge plastic, such as P.V.C. for example, having wall thicknesses of one-eighth inch or greater. As such, these cannons are much too expensive to be used once and thrown away. In addition, such thick-walled P.V.C. cannons do not decompose such that discarding them after a single use would present a problem to the landfills and the environment.
In addition to these cost and environmental factors, prior cannons have been designed so as to remain connected to the compressed gas source; such sources being in the form of a compressed air line, tank or cylinder, or a CO.sub.2 cartridge. That is, the systems have been designed with the closed ends of the cannons bolted or otherwise relatively permanently connected to the compressed gas source, and the cannons are re-used by refilling them with confetti and/or streamers after each use. This presents a serious problem when the cannons are mounted in the rafters or other structures near the ceiling of a theater, hotel ballroom, auditorium or the like where it is difficult to reach them and reload them. This is particularly true with conventional confetti which is difficult and time-consuming to pack and "fluff" into the cannons. As a result, such reloading operations are very slow, labor-intensive and costly operations, particularly when repeatedly shooting half a dozen or more cannons at each of eight or more shows each day. In that situation, there is the further problem that there may not be sufficient time between shows to reload more than several cannons. Thus, the number of cannons which can be used at each show is sometimes limited by the time required for refilling the cannons. In addition, with the use of conventional confetti, it is impossible to predetermine the size or shape of the cloud of confetti produced each time because the compacting and fluffing procedures cannot be held constant.